Prayers From the Shadows
by smileymcface
Summary: Thane Krios is the galaxy's foremost assassin. A friend of the great Commander Shepard, a dying man with nothing to lose, a hero of the battle with the collectors. But what of his past? How did the servant become the legend? Who is Thane Krios? This is his story. Thank you to jay8008 for all of your help with editing and finalizing this.
1. Prayers From the Shadows

An explosion rumbled through my ears. Deep and throbbing, unyielding. A pulse. My own. I look out upon my subject and feel...unsure. This is to be my first job - and I worry that I may not experienced enough to guarantee a clean kill. Death may be my calling, but suffering is not my purpose.

I am moments from becoming the assassin I am meant to be.

I am Thane Krios.

The drell is a businessman. He is vying for the merger of a major shipping company with his own, and my hanar masters wish otherwise. In this regard, I am but an instrument of their will, their weapon of choice. With a secure vantage point a mere 100 meters away, and only separated by a simple pane of glass, it would be easy to dispose of Vallare from a distance. Yet, I feel the need to be close, to ask Kalihira to grant his soul a safe passage across the sea as the soul leaves the body to continue on its eternal journey.

I do as I have been trained. I move silently, staying in the shadows. My 12 year old body is small enough to hide behind the smallest of cover as well as being inconsequential enough that the beings around me pay me no heed. I am "drala'Ta," the ignored, and I will use this to my advantage.

I spent time meditating over my purpose before setting out this morning, building my body up for what was to come, praying to the Lord of Hunters for guidance and protection. I am physically, mentally, and biotically prepared for the challenge of today. I pause and step to the side to access my perfect memory.

_A silent movement puts me just behind my target. Seize the ridge spine near the top of the head. Leverage gained - pull back. My sparring partner gasps in surprise. Tallaien is suddenly made aware of my presence. Sweat in my palms. In my right hand, the flare of biotics. The sweat evaporates in a flash as the hand flies forward. Blue energy dissipates with the impact at the base of the neck._

_Tallaien falls, senseless._

_From my instructor - a nod of approval._

My eyes take a moment to refocus on the world around me and I pause to bring my breath back to a controlled state. Yes, this will be highly effective and should ensure a quick death. The lack of body guards inside the office will allow for adequate time. The skylight above Vallare that I loosened earlier in the day will provide an excellent escape route. I will be gone before the guards outside realize what has happened.

I once again glimpse through the glass at my target. An aging drell whose ambitions exceed his capabilities. He is pacing behind his desk rubbing the top of his head. Perhaps in an extranet conversation, or taking voice notes - it is inconsequential. One of his head spines is chipped, according to his dossier, this was a result of a hovercar crash when he was young - just a few years older than I am now. His once bright scales are now dull and lined with an ash color, but his broad eyes are still sharp and aggressive, the sign of a still-active mind.

Revealing myself from amongst the shadows I signal a homeless man that I had paid hours earlier, I begin to close. The beggar is a human. He is one of many of the less fortunate who come to this area in an attempt to part the wealthy with their pocket change. His simple, unprotected, and seemingly fragile skin glistened with the oils and grime of dozens of garbage heaps as he approached the guards while yelling. The batarian guards have, at least, the basics of professionalism - as I noticed a week ago when I scouted my mark's frequented locations. On cue, they raise assault rifles and begin to shout warnings at the human, as he approaches with his raving nonsense.

Seizing the advantage of their momentary distraction, I dart into a blind spot - ducking behind a large potted plant and vaulting up to grip the ledge of the wall behind it. Moving carefully along it - above them, now - I go unnoticed as I creep closer to the office. I take a moment to watch the beggar and the guards argue heatedly - all attention is on them. I bend down, grasp the ledge and carefully drop down. Hurriedly I slip, unnoticed, to the door. Raising my hand, I jam my omni-tool against the lock and the lock releases with a small click, unheard over the angry shouts of the guards.

I open the door.

I steal into the office, sticking to the shadows. "Shadows are the currents you shall swim through," my instructors always told me - and this form of swimming came naturally for me. The hanar can function on land, but at sea they are the masters of their world. I find the same to hold true with myself and the darkness. Encompassed by the gloom I find peace. In the shadows, I am home.

Inside of Vallare's office I am once again struck with the uncertainty of proving my ability. Will the death be clean, if the death is not clean are my other options still open, should I be injured, will I still be able to cross the roofs to my extraction point. So many questions, but only one question mattered, is this body ready to take a life? This body is young, and while fit, the older male is almost twice my size. I remind myself that I have my biotics and my training to help level the playing field, and that all the research I had gathered showed that while large, the only fighting the businessman ever did was with words or money.

Then, there he was, pacing just in front of me, speaking to someone on his datapad. He turns away from me. Years of training take over and all doubts are washed away. I act.

Rushing forward out of the shadows, I grab the older Drell by the top of his head between the head spines, yanking back as I had practiced. The older male gasps and drops the datapad. As the datapad falls my right hand flashes blue and drives into the back of the politician's arched neck. The biotic push was meant to give my still developing muscles the means to swiftly break the neck for a quick and silent kill. However, I was unsure about how much help I needed.

The over-powered biotic Push drove the aging drell into the roof with a sickening crunch, and he fell to the floor to lie dead at my feet.

I look down at the body in amazement. Joints turned at wrong angles. The flesh scales around the base of his skull have been ripped away. Blood begins to pool around a head that is twisted at an unnatural angle. I allow myself the first small smile of the evening. The kill was good. Quick, painless - perhaps a little loud - but a clean kill. I close my eyes as pride washes over me. I am now who I have been training to be since my parents gave me to the Hanar six years ago. I have served the saviors of my people and have begun to repay the debt owed to them.

My moment of self-satisfaction - an atypical lack of focus - nearly costs me my life. It is a lesson I never failed to remember, in the years to come.

The pain of glass striking my face jolts me out of my reverie. Another thud and sparks shoot off the desk near me and I realize that I am being shot at. The guards heard Vallare hit the ceiling and have turned and are firing at me through the glass. Flinching, I leap for the sky-light and as I grab the edge, it comes off just as I planned. A bullet grazes my thigh as I scramble to the roof. I painfully pull my legs up out of harms way and glimpse down at the cooling body and close my eyes, prayers must not be sacrificed. I can hear the guards making their way through the door. Taking as much time as I dare, I briefly wish Vallare's spirit safe travels to the sea.

I open my eyes, turn away, and I run. A child no more, and never again.

I am a killer.


	2. More Than a Game

I cease my recollection. Taking a deep breath as reality comes crashing back through my senses, I call out.

"Sketch, stop transcription."

From the darkened corner of my dingy Omega apartment a light from my VI program blinks in acknowledgement

"Transcription stopped." The little orb replies, "Do you require anything else, Mr. Krios?"

A nearly imperceptible shake of my head. "No. Nothing else."

"Powering down."

The orange light of the drone that had been filling the room fades away - leaving only the meager glow of the crack under the door, leaving the shapes and coarse details in the room still visible to my enhanced vision. The darkness takes on a familiar tint - somewhere between purple and grey - as darkness descends.

Leaning back in my chair, I look back on the job that was the the first of many.

The Vallare job, it was my first job and also proved to be my most important - it taught me lessons that would save my life numerous times over the years. I still carry the scar on my thigh, and another smaller, nearly imperceptible, scar on my face. These are wounds that I did not want the healers to completely erase, lessons that I did not want to lose. Every time I look in a mirror I see the tiny line between my cheek scales, a reminder that today, no matter what my task, I must always focus. My life, my job, my future hangs in the balance.

I carry other scars that are much more difficult to see. A deep sadness of never seeing my parents after my sixth birthday. The loss of Irikah. The bottomles pain of my failures as a father.

I do not know my son Kolyat. Not personally at least, I know a number of facts about him. I still have a number of contacts throughout the galaxy, as well as a number still on the hanar homeworld of Kahje, where my son lives. These informants are paid well to feed me important information about my son and his whereabouts. He still lives with his aunt and uncle there and is safe - it has been years since I last had to intervene on a hit against a family member. He attends a secondary school and has decent grades although he regularly lands himself in fights with other classmates - a legacy of his father - and is well known by the law enforcement in his town. That is all that I truly know about him - I do not even know his favorite color.

No.

I shake my head to clear it of treacherous thoughts such as that. They lead to places that I have no wish to revisit. I am protecting him by staying away from him and not allowing him to know me, I tell myself. It keeps him safe, safer than my wife ever was, the only thing she had been guilty of was marrying me. I need to move on before I get taken away in my memories - I must focus elsewhere, the pain is too much.

My eyes turn to the corner where my dormant VI resides - and again I wonder why I record my memoirs. What is the point of recording a life that does not exist? I have no friends, nor lovers, nor business associates - merely contacts, to whom I am one coded message relay out of many. If I were to vanish - none would take notice. My life is a secret, few know that I exist and even fewer know _who_ I am. Perhaps I can program the VI to send these memories to Kolyat after my death - he may wish, someday, to know of his father. Maybe I just want to be remembered. I do not have any real friends left, contacts and informants are the only ones I speak with regularly - the result of a violent life.

The sounds of a gunfight rip through the quiet outside of my room. This is nothing new to Omega. This broken rock is without a doubt the most crime ridden location I have ever encountered. I have come here numerous times while on various jobs throughout the years. Omega is practically seething with evil individuals and when a rich merchant wishes to see those who pirated one of his shipments dead, statistics show that a crime hub such as this is the most logical place to begin my search.

However, simple pirates are not what call me to this miserable asteroid. My life has been violent, and many would claim that my existence has brought as much evil into the galaxy as those who call this place home, if not more. I seek to do some good with my body before I leave it and there are individuals that live here who should not be allowed to continue harming others.

A few years ago I noticed that I could feel myself breathing. It did not hurt, but typically regular breathing is not something you feel without focusing on it. After the feeling persisted for a few weeks I sought medical attention, although I already had a terrible suspicion of the cause. The doctors confirmed my suspicions, Kepral's Syndrome.

Of course, I already knew what this meant. A long, drawn out death. My lungs will lose the ability to freely absorb oxygen - followed quickly by my other major organs. It is not quick or efficient, but slow, steady, and unavoidable. I know, I watched it take my first friend and mentor, Keltin.

Keltin was another assassin in the service of the hanar. An older drell who retired from active service in order to teach the next generation of killers. I owe him greatly, he was the only father figure I ever really knew. He trained me to be the best assassin I could possibly be, then he taught me more. I owe him for more than just my success, I owe him my life.

I check the time on my omni-tool, I have a few hours before I should leave this place, my mark is not scheduled to leave the club Afterlife for until later in the day. I have time.

I activate the small Virtual Intelligence program installed on my omni-tool .

As the small globe begins to take shape I sit up in my chair once again. "Sketch, activate journaling protocol."

"Journaling protocol active, Mr. Krios."

I allow myself to once again sink into my past. Light flashes in my mind's eye and the rotten walls of my apartment begin to merge with the stale grey walls of the training center on Kahje where I first met Keltin. He deserves to be remembered as well.

My foot impacts with my sparring partner's chin. Tallaien falls once again with a snarl. He does not accept defeat well. I take a step back as he picks himself up, pausing to give him the chance to ready himself again. Rising slowly to his feet, Tallaien spits a mouthful of blood to the side of the training mat.

"Thane, I swear, I'm going to hurt you." He growls out through blood stained teeth.

Tallaien has been my sparring partner for years. We entered into our training at almost the same age. I am six standard months younger than him, and as a result, we are often pitted against one another in practice. Over the years, I have excelled in most of our instruction while he has recently begun to stagnate. He is a much louder and more impulsive individual than I am. When he takes on a job, he tends to adopt a soldier-like approach - quick, brutal, direct, and artless - whereas I prefer to keep my mark unaware of my very existence until they feel their life leaving them. The psychological assault of having your guards taken out from under you is very important to him.

"The purpose of this exercise is to practice, not to injure one another, Tallaien." I reply as we begin to circle once again, quoting our instructor's orders from nearly an hour ago.

We are practicing our hand-to-hand combat only. While both of us are biotics, using those talents is draining and should not be used constantly or we risk exhaustion while on the job. If we become dependent on our biotics and this happens, we have very few options for a clean exfiltration. Our instructors teach that biotics should help us fight, but they should not be how we fight.

"Whatever, Krios. You will regret that last hit." Tallaien says with a snarl. I find it surprising how often he takes personal offense at his body's failings.

"Tallaien." I say calmly "You lowered your guard when you stepped forward to strike at my left side. I took advantage of your open guard. This should be a learning experience."

He gives me a sneer and I decide to try and appease him somewhat.

"When we started today and you landed that heavy kick to my stomach, that was due both to my mistake and to your skill taking advantage of that mistake. You have not managed to land that same strike since because..."

Tallaien interrupted me with a running kick at my stomach.

As the foot comes into what the instructors refer to as my "field of control," I rotate marginally to the side so that the foot contacts my lower hip. I move quickly, using the momentum from his foot to rotate faster than normal and my elbow drives into Tallaien's chest. He flies to the side with an "Ooof!" as the air is driven from his lungs.

"...Because I learned from my mistake." I say finishing my previous thought.

Leaping to his feet Tallaien screams, "You pretentious bastard!" and flies at me.

There is rage in his face as he launches into a flurry of blows. I duck, block, absorb and dance away from his shots. Tallaien is very enthusiastic but, as I am trying to let him know, he is generally slow to learn and improvisation is not his greatest strength.

I spot a brief opening in his guard and lash out with my left open palm, striking him with the heel of my hand in the ridge-line under his left eye. I feel a slight sting as the sharp scales of the ridge slightly cut my palm. The strike violently rotates his head and I duck under a flailing arm and move quickly to stand behind him. Reaching up, I grab him by the throat from behind and hold him as he thrashes about in an attempt to break away. Applying pressure to the major vessels in his neck with my forearm and bicep, I should only have a few seconds before Tallaien passes out from blood-loss to the brain. Knocking him unconscious is not a part of this exercise either but I can see that he needs to be stopped before this match gets dangerous.

A bright blue flash erupts from Tallaien's body and I am hit with a hammer blow to the chest. Looking down, I see the practice mat whipping by underneath me. Well that could be a problem. I think just before slamming into the far wall.

Hitting the wall I feel ribs crack and I hear a strange, almost wet sounding, pop as my right shoulder is dislocated. My mind begins to race. A biotic attack, close range, issuing from within Tallaien, a concentrated Shockwave? Does not matter, get up, raise shields, Warp for a reply, relocate, assess, react.

I try to stand up to begin my own response and am again lifted into the air.

Tallaien is standing in the center of the ring, encased in blue light with one hand lifted in front of himself that is pouring tendrils of energy at me. Too late for shields, too late to avoid, almost too late for anything. I fire a biotic Warp at his hand, disrupting the flow of energy from it. With an ear shattering crack, the Warp field detonates as it impacts with Tallaien's own energy field.

With the release of Tallaien's biotic hold I fall heavily to the ground, grinding my broken ribs, and as I try to stand it feels like I may have broken a few more. The edges of my vision fade slightly with the pain of bone grinding against bone. Gasping for air, I painfully draw myself up onto my hands and knees I search for Tallaien.

A snarl comes from behind me. "Nice one Krios, but it is going to take a little more than that to stop me."

I turn my throbbing head to see Tallaien standing behind me with barred teeth.

"Where is your high-and-mighty attitude now! I'm your better in every way Krios! I am stronger, faster, deadlier, but for some reason, YOU were always the favorite! Always standing there all quiet, pretending you're better than everyone else." An evil grin crosses his face. "But I know the truth, and now, everyone else will know that you are nothing."

I try to move but find that I have no control over my body. Come on, move. Move Thane! I yell at myself. My body begins to shake with the effort of sitting up, my shoulder is throbbing and my arm feels numb, it feels as though one of my broken ribs may have punctured a lung.

With a chilling smile, a blue light again coalesces across Tallaien's body. I realize that these are to be my final moments in this life, soon I will leave this body and travel across the sea. I must face my death with honor.

Looking up into my killers eyes I wait for imminent death. Tallaien's hand pulls back. With a snarl his hand flashes forward and the world slows to a near stand-still.

I feel a small drop of blood sliding down the corner of my mouth. I am still halfway crouched between being on my knees and standing. An almost funny thought crosses my mind. It would be terrible to die on my knees. Tallaien's teeth are stained red as he yells wordlessly. I wonder if that is a result of my kick earlier or if he was further injured when my Warp detonated. The biotic tendrils forming around his hand are beginning to pull into each other, beginning to concentrate just before releasing from his hand. How curious. I think in my heavy minded state. I wonder if the mass effect field can be manipulated from there or if the concentration is too much and it must be released.

My eyelids are slow and heavy as they blink for what I believe to be the last time. A deep thunder ponderously climbs through the room.

Was that gunfire? I think to myself. Who would be firing this far from the range? Who is even authorized to carry a weapon through this facility?

A brief line flickers into my field of view and impacts the ball of light moments before it leaves Tallaien's hand. A biotic Throw, close enough to pulp every bone in my body, rips from his hand, and misses me by inches.

Real-time comes crashing back into my senses and seems to try to catch up for the previous lull by moving far too fast. Tallaien opens his mouth to cry out at the sudden arrival of pain that has come shearing through his hand, but before he can make a sound he is cut off as another drell enters my frame of vision, driving a fist into the face of my sparring partner even as a handgun is still folding into place on the stranger's lower back. While Tallaien is still reeling from the initial strike to the face, the stranger lands three consecutive blows. One to each cheek and another to the base of his chin. Tallaien stumbles back under the onslaught as fists, knees and elbows fly at him like automatic gunfire. Four seconds after Tallaien first pulled back his hand in an attempt to end my life, he is lying, unmoving, on the ground.

A strange crackling sound issues from the throat of the young, unconscious drell as he tries to breathe through broken teeth. The older drell, a man I have never seen before, turns to face me. His breathing is calm and even, with no signs of any exertion whatsoever, in stark contrast to my own heavy, labored breathing. I feel as though there is a large weight pressing down on my chest, every intake of air is takes more and more effort.

"Are you alright?" he asks with a face that practically sang of serenity. The calm in his face was shocking to me, considering how mere seconds earlier he was a titanic and unstoppable force of violence.

"You are in shock young one." he says walking towards me when a response is not forthcoming. His voice is strangely muted, as though he is far away, and the room around him is beginning to spin.

How strange, am I being moved?

Reaching towards me, his far away voice comes again, "You will be alright son." The lights begin to dim. "I am here to help you."

My eyes begin to flutter shut. I will close my eyes for a moment, maybe that will make to room stop spinning.

"My name is Keltin."

The darkness thrusts itself upon me and I let unconsciousness take over.


End file.
